Pale Read Online Free Page B

together.
    “We need to talk,” I said.
    She sniffed. “OK.”
    “I want to see you,” I said. “Face to face. You owe me that much.”
    “Alright,” she said.
    “There’s this deserted old apartment building I know,” I told her. “Nobody goes there. Nobody will see us together.”
    “Tonight?” she asked.
    “Tonight,” I said.
    I told her how to get there and we agreed on a time. Then I put the phone down. I patted the needle of serum in my pocket.
    “Tonight,” I said again.

Chapter 11
A Secret Meeting
    The apartments stood on the edge of some waste ground. They were all boarded up and abandoned. It looked like no one had lived in them for years.
    I crept towards them across the waste ground. Away from the street-lamps, it was very dark. I was nervous. If my heart could beat, it would have been hammering. I kept on thinking I could hear footsteps following me. But whenever I looked back, I didn’t see anything.
    I was scared of seeing Sadie again. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to do what I had to.
    It wasn’t murder. That’s what I told myself. If I gave her the serum, she’d die. That was true. But she wouldn’t be dead dead. She’d be like me. And I was alive. My heart didn’t beat, and I didn’t need to breathe, but I was alive.
    So it couldn’t be murder.
    But then I started to wonder. What was I really doing this for? Was it truly because I loved her? Or was it all to get her back for what she did? Because she had turned me into a Pale and then dumped me?
    I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if I could go through with it. I just wanted to talk to her again, face to face. Without Kyle or anyone else around.
    The thought of Kyle made me angry. I remembered him with his arm round Sadie. That wasn’t what best friends were meant to do. I’d only been gone a few days and they were already together.
    Maybe, if I talked to her, she’d see past the white skin and the strange eyes. Maybe she’d see that I was just me. Maybe she’d be my girlfriend again.
    Fat chance.
    I reached the building. The door had been boarded up, but the boards had been broken. It was me and Kyle who did that, back when we were friends. We’d gone out to explore together. It all seemed a long time ago now.
    I went inside.
    It was cold. Thick shadows gathered in the hallways. Water dripped from somewhere above me. There was crap lying all around.
    I climbed the stairs and went into the apartment at the top. I knew I’d be able to get inside. Me and Kyle had broken the door down last time we were here.
    I was right. The door was half off its hinges. I went in.
    The apartment was probably shabby even before it was abandoned. Now it was foul. The carpet was mouldy. The wallpaper was peeling. Everything stank of rot.
    Not the best place to meet a girl. But at least there’d be nobody around. No one to see what I was going to do.
    I took the Lazarus needle out of my pocket. Faint light from outside shone on the serum. Could I really do it to her? Could I make her a Pale like me? If I did, then she would have to be mine and not Kyle’s.
    If I didn’t, then I had to give her up forever.
    I heard a voice. “Jed? Are you here?” It was her. She was downstairs. I put the needle back in my pocket as fast as I could.
    “I’m up here,” I called.
    “Where?” she asked. I could hear she was coming up the stairs.
    “The apartment at the top.”
    I could hear movement down below. I stood there and waited. After a short while, she appeared in the door of the apartment.
    She looked amazing. Even though she was all bundled up in a coat. We stared at each other. Her eyes were so sad.
    I knew, right at that moment, that I could never hurt her. I couldn’t turn her into a Pale. She’d saved me, after all. I would have died if it wasn’t for her. It hurt that she’d turned her back on me, but I understood. She just couldn’t face being with a Pale.
    Maybe I would have done the same, if it had been her that died.
    “Sadie,”